Biomedical subjects

Stephen D Goldinger

Publications and source records attributed to Stephen D Goldinger.

5 recordsLinked to original sources

PubMed2006

The generation and resemblance heuristics in face recognition: cooperation and competition.

Like all probabilistic decisions, recognition memory judgments are based on inferences about the strength and quality of stimulus familiarity. In recent articles, B. W. A. Whittlesea and J. Leboe (2000; J. Leboe & B. W. A. Whittlesea, 2002) proposed that such memory decisions entail various heuristics, similar to well-known heuristics in overt decision making. Using verbal stimulus materials, Whittlesea and Leboe illustrated 3 separate memory heuristics: fluency, generation, and resemblance. In the present investigation, the authors examined the generation and resemblance heuristics in face recognition. In 12 experiments, people memorized faces and later performed exclusion (source memory) tasks. Every experiment contained natural groups of facial photographs (e.g., Caucasian vs. Asian faces), but such groups were not always valid source-memory predictors. Instead, across experiments, the potential utility of generation and resemblance strategies was systematically varied. People were quite sensitive to such variations, changing from one heuristic to another as needed. However, they also combined heuristics, both improving and damaging performance across conditions. The relevance of recognition decision heuristics to eyewitness memory is considered.

Contrast Sensitivity↗

PubMed2005

Remembering by the seat of your pants.

According to dual-process theories of memory, "old" responses in recognition may reflect the separate or combined effects of two states, specific recollection and feelings of nonspecific familiarity. When decisions are based on familiarity, people may attribute enhanced perceptual fluency to memory for prior occurrence. In this experiment, we tested whether a subliminal somatic cue (a low-amplitude buzz) could enhance feelings of familiarity. The buzz increased the likelihood that participants responded "old," both correctly and incorrectly. This effect occurred only with subjectively difficult stimuli, those relatively unlikely to elicit clear recollection. When a stronger control buzz was used, the effect vanished. Results for confidence ratings were consistent with Whittlesea's SCAPE theory, producing a dissociation between hits and false alarms. Specifically, the buzz reduced confidence in hits and increased confidence in false alarms, in accord with the most likely attributions for the feelings of familiarity associated with the buzz.

Humans↗

PubMed2004

Sensitivity to expectancy violations in healthy aging and mild cognitive impairment.

In this study, individuals with mild cognitive impairment (MCI) were tested to see if executive dysfunction impacts their implementation of expectancy biases in a priming task. Young adults, healthy older adults, and individuals with MCI made speed-related decisions to sequentially presented word pairs. The proportion of category related (e.g., apple-fruit) versus coordinate related (apple-pear) pairs was varied to create different expectancy biases. When the proportion of category pairs was high (80%), the control groups showed an expectancy bias: Significant inhibition was observed for coordinate pairs compared with category pairs. The MCI group also demonstrated an expectancy bias but with much larger costs for unexpected targets. The findings suggest that individuals with MCI are inordinately sensitive to expectancy violations, and these findings are discussed in terms of possible executive dysfunction.

Adolescent↗

PubMed2004

Episodic memory reflected in printed word naming.

Although memory is typically measured by recall or recognition, it is also expressed by fluent or stylized task performance. In this experiment, 12 volunteers (called speakers) completed four experimental stages over a 2-week period. They read printed words aloud in two sessions, before and after exposure to auditory training tokens. They later completed a recognition memory test, discriminating old from new words. Groups of perceptual judges assessed the speakers' vocal imitation by comparing utterances recorded before and after training and deciding which sounded like "better imitations" of the training tokens. The data showed clear evidence of postexposure imitation, with systematic effects that preclude strategic explanations. The contents of episodic memory were reflected by participants' speaking style while they were reading aloud. Together, the imitation and recognition data suggest that memory preserves detailed traces of spoken words; those traces were apparently activated when participants later read the same words in the same context.

Humans↗

PubMed2003

"Blaming the victim" under memory load.

When presented with negative outcomes, people often engage in counterfactual thinking imagining various ways that events might have been different. This appears to be a spontaneous behavior, with considerable adaptive value. Nevertheless, counterfactual thinking may also engender systematic biases in various judgment tasks, such as allocating blame for a mishap, or deciding on the appropriate compensation to a victim. Thus, counterfactuals sometimes require thought suppression or discounting, potentially resource-demanding tasks. In this study. participants made mock-jury decisions about control and counterfactual versions of simple stories. The judgments of two groups of participants, differing in their respective levels of working memory capacity, were compared. In addition, all participants held memory loads during various stages of the primary task. Lower-span individuals were especially susceptible to bias associated with the counterfactual manipulation, but only when holding memory loads during judgment. The results suggest that counterfactual thoughts arise automatically, and may later require effortful, capacity-demanding suppression.

Crime Victims↗